He shook his head. "It was raining hard. I got a little worried."

"Then why didn't we leave?"

"There wasn't a tornado watch. There probably should have been, but there wasn't. I thought it was safe. I was wrong." He sighed, and his voice softened. "Anyway, I wasn't exactly thinking straight. I was so full of you."

I slid across the seat toward him. He watched me. I stretched up to kiss his neck, just where the collar of his sweatshirt ended. I kissed my way up under his hair, toward parts of his neck I only saw when his hair was tucked under a swim cap in the pool. Then his chin where his stubble started. I felt him shudder, but he didn't touch me, and when I pulled away he was still staring at me, almost angrily.

"Y did it before," I protested. "What's the difference?"

"It meant something before. Now it's all scientific. Y ou're recovering data."

"Y owe me." I slid my hand onto the front of his shorts.

His eyes widened. And in one motion he took off his glasses, tossed them onto the dash, and put his hands behind my head, drawing me closer. His mouth hit my mouth and opened me. His tongue swept inside me.

Doug was a great kisser. I knew this right away. And I wasn't surprised, because he looked like a great kisser. The girls on the swim team had talked about this before. We didn't want to mess with juvie, but we knew sooner or later whomever Doug finally hooked up with was going to get a mouthful.

Instead, I was the one who got his mouth. His lips were soft. His tongue was firm. His teeth were sneaky, nipping at me when I didn't expect it. We kissed for long minutes as our bodies slowly intertwined. My hand slipped between his shorts and the heathered boxer briefs. His hand shoved past my shorts and panties, onto my bare skin. Finally I was out of breath. I pulled a few inches away from him and gasped.

He wouldn't let me get away. He put his forehead to my forehead and chuckled. "That's exactly what you did before."

I rubbed the tip of my nose back and forth across his. "How did my earring get caught on your zipper?"

"Hm." He laughed. "I just said that to make you mad. We didn't do anything like that. We wanted to save something for later. Y earring came out when

our I put my hands in your hair. Like this." He wove the fingers of both hands into my hair and held me firmly as he kissed me.

A long time later, his mouth had done everything it could possibly do to my mouth, twice. My hands were growing restless. I whispered against his lips, "Is this when we moved into the backseat?"

He breathed rapidly through his nose and blinked at me. He seemed to have a hard time focusing on me, but maybe that was because he was missing his glasses. "Y but--"

es,

"But what?" I slid over the console into the backseat and opened the back door for him, holding out my hands to steady him as he leaned on the Benz and hopped from the front door to the back. As I pulled him inside I said, "This has got to be a lot more comfy than the backseat of the Bug."

"More roomy," he acknowledged as he closed the door. "But I didn't have a broken leg before. Equally awkward."

I pressed him backward until he lay on the seat and I lay on top of him. Not too different from the way we'd lain together in the back of the swim team van and the back of the police car, except this time I was in control. I kissed his mouth, his neck, and felt a new rush every time he moaned.

I tugged at his sweatshirt until he relented and helped me take it off him. I smoothed my hands across his lean chest and strong arms. I kissed from his neck down his sternum to the inny belly button I'd found so fascinating in the van. His belly button was mine for tonight. I dipped my tongue into it, licked the circumference and let my tongue trail down, just to get revenge for that joke about my earring getting caught in his zipper.

As my mouth reached the waistband of his shorts, he gasped, "Okay."

"Okay." I laughed, straightening so I could pull off my shirt. "Is this when you took off my bra?"

He squinted at me through the black hair in his eyes. "Y but--"

es,

"Is this the same bra?"

He propped himself up on his elbows. "No, it was blue with white polka dots, and it had a blue bow right there." He poked me between the boobs. "So you still don't believe we did this?"

"I believe you." I'd had some lingering doubts, but I believed him now that he'd correctly identified the bra. "I still don't understand how I ended up in the car with you when I'd wanted to go parking with Brandon. But I understand completely how, once I was here, things snowballed and we went all the way. I've lived all my life in Florida and I have no experience with snow."

"Me neither." He lay back on the seat again, then reached up with both hands and framed my bra with his fingers. "Zoey, if we do this, what does it mean?"

"We will do this, and it means you owe me this memory."

He dropped his hands. "If it doesn't mean more than that, I don't want to do it."

I leaned forward until I was on all fours, face-to-face with him, hovering over him. "Y will do it."

His eyes narrowed. I'd pushed him too far, telling him what to do. He shifted, feeling on the floor for his sweatshirt.

"Did I do this?" I asked quickly as I smoothed my hand inside his boxer briefs.

He said, "Mmmmmmmm," and then reached up with both hands again and pressed my head down until our lips met. We kissed so deeply that I hardly noticed when he unhooked my bra after all and unlooped it from my shoulders.

Eventually he slid lower on the seat and took my breast into his mouth. Every move my hand made on him, his mouth echoed on me, until I was buzzing with tension and eager to offer him everything.

We stayed just this way for long minutes, poised on the edge. I wanted to do more. I was afraid if I stopped what we were doing, I would lose it all. But after his tongue on my breast made me cry out, my fingers found a condom packet tucked into the seat. I'd let the gargantuan box of condoms lie on the floor of the car with a few packets scattered around it since I threw it there Tuesday, for the viewing pleasure of anyone who peeked into the Benz. Even my mother could have seen this Wednesday night if she'd had her faculties.

I'd never opened a condom packet before in my life. I sat up on Doug's h*ps and held the packet up to the light to tear it.

"Zoey."

"What. Am I doing it wrong?"

Breathing hard, he reached up with one hand and took the packet from me. "It's almost two thirty. Y have an appointment to narrowly miss a deer and

ou crash into Mike."

Coaxing had worked before, so I coaxed him again. I lay down on him, my bare br**sts to his warm bare chest, skin to skin, such a strange sensation. I brushed his stubbly cheek with the back of my hand and ran my thumb across his soft lips, echoing caresses he'd given me during the week, which he must have given me Friday night but I hadn't understood until now. I whispered, "Y owe me."

"I don't owe you, Zoey," he said sadly. "I only agreed to do this because I thought there would be more after tonight. But this is really all you wanted. I can't do it. I can't make it worse than it already is. I know you need this one night, to reconstruct your memory, and I care about you. But I care about me too, and I can't do this anymore." He sat up, swung his leg and his cast around to the floor, and handed me my bra and my shirt without looking at me.

I wanted to say something to keep him there with me, even if we didn't make love. More caressing, talking, anything. I knew I shouldn't have stopped. But he was right. His lies had ruined whatever there had been between us. I didn't want anything from him beyond tonight. And as badly as I wanted this one night, I wasn't willing to lie to him to get it. I, for one, was through with lying.

He ducked into his sweatshirt, picked up his crutches, and paused with his hand on the door. "Y have my cell phone number. I'll keep the same one

ou when I go to college." He rolled his eyes. "If I go to college. I'll keep it wherever I go." He looked straight at me. "If you ever feel like doing what your mom did, call me."

I shuddered. "I won't."

"Please." It was the first time I'd ever heard Doug say this word. To anyone.

I shook my head. "I mean, I won't feel like that."

"If you do, call me. Promise."

I tried to picture feeling that way, and wondered whether I could really bring myself to call Doug if I did. But I couldn't imagine that feeling. Which was a good sign. I said, "I promise."

He put his hand on my knee and stroked there with his thumb. "I understand I can't have you. But I want to know you're in the world with me." Leaning forward on his crutches, he kissed me on the cheek. I got one last whiff of chlorine and the ocean. He made a slow, awkward exit from the car, during which he dropped his crutches twice and nearly fell off the causeway. I had plenty of time to call him back and stop him before he limped back to his house.

And then he was gone.

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY life, I was late for school. I dragged myself into the main office on four hours' of sleep with no parental excuse. I hoped the assistant principal didn't turn me in to Child Protective Services.

But by the time I interrupted Ms. Northam's lecture and stumbled down the aisle between the rows of desks in English, I'd forgotten all about that, and I didn't even notice whether everybody was staring at me. I focused on Doug. He might or might not be hungover. He'd had a long time to recover from his early night of drinking. But I knew he'd missed a pain pill.

Sure enough, his head was down, his face pressed into the open leaves of a battered hardback copy of A Passage to India on his desk (the rest of us had the school's pristine paperbacks). I'd intended to hand him his glasses, which he'd left on my dashboard last night, and use that as an excuse to talk to him and make sure he was okay.

But Keke had taken my seat behind him. Usually she sat across the room with Lila. It must be too hot for her over there today, with Lila so angry at her.

I dropped his glasses beside the book on his desk, then slipped into the desk across the aisle, behind Connor. Now I could see that Keke's hand was on Doug's back.

I resented how Keke had treated me yesterday, but jealousy and fear overrode that. I leaned across the aisle and whispered to her, "Is he okay?"

"Doug?" Ms. Northam prompted. She'd asked a question I hadn't heard. And she wasn't very good at identifying who caused disturbances at the back of the room.

Keke whispered to him, "Flat characters," as if she were the friend assigned to protect him and keep him out of trouble today. Which suddenly made me very, very angry.

"Round characters in Aspects of the Novel. " He said it loudly enough for Ms. Northam to hear, but he said it to his desk without lifting his head from the book.

"That's correct," Ms. Northam said. She stepped to one side until she could see Doug. "Is your leg bothering you?"

"Y ma'am," he told his desk. "My pill will kick in any second now."

es

"Well, go lie down in the nurse's office while you're waiting," Ms. Northam said.

Without being asked, Keke slipped his glasses and his books into his backpack and handed it to him. He picked up his crutches and slowly stood to his full height, towering over the class.

I whispered up at him, "Do you want me to go with you?"

He turned and gave me the most evil look with watery eyes. Keke turned from him to me and back to him.

"Aw, have woo been cwying?" Connor asked him. "Do woo need a tissue?"

Doug took a sudden step toward Connor. Connor fell backward out of his desk. An uneasy titter rose from the boys in the room.

Doug turned and limped up the aisle and out the door. Immediately there was a metallic crash like he'd fallen against the lockers. Keke half rose. Ms. Northam nodded at her. Before I could do anything to stop Keke or explain that I was the one who was supposed to help Doug, Keke disappeared after him.

He didn't need me. 16 Amid jabs of, "Skeered?" from other boys, Connor picked himself up off the floor and sat in his desk. I waited until Ms. Northam's lecture had absorbed the attention of the room again before I whispered over his shoulder, "Remember in tenth grade when Doug got suspended for starting a fight with Aaron Spears, I think, outside history class?"

Connor in front of me and Nate beside me both nodded.

"What set Doug off?"

"Aaron made a kung fu joke," Connor said. "Wait, that's not even Japanese. A karate joke."

Nate shook his head. "That was a completely different fight, last year with Jimmy Gillespie in back of Jamaica Joe's. When Doug got suspended, Aaron did his eyes like this." Nate placed his fingers at the corners of his eyes and slanted them up.

"That's right," Connor said. "On a positive note, if you ever want to get Doug suspended from school, just make a joke about Asians and stand there until he hits you."

"I feel heady with power," Nate said. He and Connor both said, "Bwa-ha-ha!" and rubbed their hands together like evildoers.

"Zoey!" Ms. Northam called with her hands on her hips. "Please move across the room where you won't disturb your classmates. I do hope we're not making this a daily occurrence."

No, the daily occurrence was thinking about anything in English except English. After flopping my book closed and schlepping across the room to the back corner desk, I renewed my effort to be a good girl and pay attention to the lecture. I truly did. All the same, my eyes kept drifting from Ms. Northam to the door, impatient for Keke to reappear.